


Template

by Stormcalled (Raidho)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Bad End Fic, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen, Medical Torture, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Prisoner of War, Specific Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:14:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22370077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raidho/pseuds/Stormcalled
Summary: With the First saved the Warrior of Light returned to the Source to make good on his promise to take the fight to Garlemald.  But it seems his doom was still destined: captured by Imperial forces, he now serves as a template to the revived Resonant project.Perhaps death by Black Rose would have been a kinder fate.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 21





	Template

**Author's Note:**

> This work is an AU and thus not part of the [In Perfect Love and Perfect Trust](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1435858) cycle, though it does feature the same Warrior of Light. At times this work may be very dark and potentially triggering, though specific topics will be tagged if I think they approach a necessary degree. I'm also not sure how long this will be, or how often it will be updated.
> 
> You can yell at me on twitter [@AStormcalled](https://twitter.com/AStormcalled) or tumblr [@Dellebecque](https://dellebecque.tumblr.com)

_...advancement in magitek and artificial enhancement over the last three years, the XIIth Legion's Institute for Metaaetheric Studies was founded by the late Aulus mal Asina by leave of His Radiance-- _

The transport hit a bump, and Astris looked up at the driver, scowling, as they crossed out of Garlemald proper and into more savage territory. For the umpteenth time she privately cursed that the laboratory hadn't been moved to the capitol, even after retaking Ala Mhigo city. So much delicate equipment and so many brilliant minds so close to the frontline… it put her ill at ease, but if she wanted to advance her career it was necessary to accept this most prestigious appointment. It wasn't every day someone pulled strings to assign you assistant to the director of a top secret research laboratory infamous for churning out the most powerful biomagiteknical weapons known to man. Her scowl faded, looking down to the display pad sitting heavy and warm on her lap. The screen had gone to sleep, and she saw her reflection in the glassy black surface. 

She had so much work to do, and only so long to do it.

* * *

Astris had seen images of the director, but did not expect to be nearly a head taller than him. Regardless, when the young technician assigned to show her around brought her to Resonance Control, there he was. He quietly leaned past a technician at a bank of gauges and dials to adjust something, then looked up at the wide viewing window before them, smiling. "Applying this particular template is more art than science," he told the technician, voice gentle and almost fatherly. "You'll have it in time."

Astris' escort cleared his throat and the director looked up, a warm smile spreading across his face. "Ah, doctor… goe Vanitas, was it?" He gestured her over with one hand. "You're just in time."

She slowly drew to his side, gazing out the window as it came into view. They overlooked a large room with a tiered structure covered in black capsules, a flat area at the center that looked half operating theater, half altar. Atop it lay a young man strapped to a table, mouth open in a scream as aether visibly swirled around him. “Our crown jewel,” the director said. “This is where the Resonant are made.”

She’d read all about the process on the ride out, but in truth she’d known before then--the Resonant were the Empire’s most vaunted heroes after all, His Radiance’s elite. Official media channels sang their praises in the war against the Eorzean savages. And yet nothing had prepared her to witness the process, the macabre fascination and visceral horror as she  _ knew _ that young man’s soul was broken and reforged in a new image. Astris watched with clinical interest, quietly asking questions of the director. It seemed a strangely reverent moment.

When the machine hum outside wound down he clapped her on the shoulder and steered her towards the door. Technicians in containment suits unbuckled restraints, and by the time they made their way from Control to the chamber were helping him up. As the director ran through statistics like a proud father she scanned the great machine, eyes slowly passing from capsule to capsule. Each one held a corpse now. Someone who had been alive when she entered the building. Except one.

A pair of technicians in containment suits jogged out, followed by four soldiers. “Ah, this will be a treat. Here.” The director lead her over to the side of the ramp, well away from the capsule these technicians and soldiers approached, but still in view as the technicians unlatched it and hauled a limp body out. Only this one was still breathing.

Barely.

“The template?” she asked, voice hushed so as not to disrupt their work. He was a miqo’te, a little above average height for that bestial race, skin ashen as if it were permanently tanned but now bloodless. Red fur on his ears and tail looked dull, and his matching hair shot through with little hints of gold bore a salting of white strands.

“A very special one,” the director said. “The most prized in our collection.” The technicians laid the miqo’te out on the floor and checked his vitals, and splayed out so she noticed rather  _ curiously _ that despite the signs of long term stress on his body, presumably from repeated use as a template, he seemed relatively fit.

“Who is he?” The technicians seemed satisfied and gave the soldiers a go-ahead. One produced cruel looking manacles, meant to bind the arms from wrist to elbow; another what appeared to be a muzzle--or perhaps a brank, when the light caught inside it just so. 

“The only man ever to best His Radiance in combat,” the director answered, a little glimmer in his eye. “The most dangerous savage of all.”

“I had heard he died,” Astris murmured, awe-struck. How did he look so hale years on? As they moved his limp form around and applied their restraints she noticed what seemed to be a small port at the base of his tail, of a sort she’d seen for rather advanced magitek prosthetics. The vicious scarring next to it gave her some indication of what it might be there for, but not  _ why _ such a procedure had been performed on a captive relegated to such a use.

“His Radiance would never permit such a thing,” the director said. “And we do our best to avoid stressing him overmuch while making new Resonant. He is  _ merely _ on loan, after all.”

“Why are these security procedures necessary?” she asked as the soldiers made way for their accompanying technicians, who had returned with a gurney. “He seems quite incapable of resistance.”

“He’ll be awake before they’re out the door,” the director shot her a grin, still strangely proud, “and capable of resistance before they can safely return him to his cell. We can’t be too careful.” The director removed his glasses, squinting at some speck only he could see. “He killed your predecessor.”

She tore her gaze from the template at that, and found the director glancing askance at her, grinning wolfish in the harsh light of the laboratory. “Come,” he said, “and I’ll brief you on the particulars.”

If any part of her held sympathy for the beast the soldiers hauled out of that room, it shuddered in revulsion at the cavalier tone in which the director had said  _ on loan _ . It wasn’t enough to deter her, though. Astris followed the director out of the laboratory, the gurney wheeling out just behind them and turning down another hallway--and she flinched when she heard the metal frame shake and the wheels jump as the prisoner bucked atop it.


End file.
